Returning to Hurst after a year, I wondered how it would feel. The short anwer is that it didn't feel that different. It seemed like we had been on a really long vacation. I suppose that feeling will ebb as we spend more and more time away from the DFW area. We did live there for 20 years, so, even after being away for almost a year, it felt natural to be back there. There were a few changes, but nothing really major.
Coming back to Houston has been a very different experience. We lived in Houston from 1972 to 1983. This is where we became adults. I told Drake I can remember to this day driving into Houston at the peak of rush hour in August of 1972 in our 'new' 1964 Oldsmobile '88 - a big honking white car with red faux leather interior (aka VINYL) I was to discover this was the worst possible interior car material for hot humid Houston. My hands were clutching the steering wheel so hard, and my heart was pounding, and I was sitting bolt upright. I'd never seen this many cars or this many lanes of traffic in my life. It seemed as if everyone but me knew which lanes to be in and when. I had it easy - Drake was driving the U-Haul Truck in the rush hour mess. It was not an auspicious introduction to Houston, but as I was to discover - prophetic.
In 1972 as in 2011 the car and the freeway rule Houston. It was surprising how quickly the configuration of the freeway system came back - especially to Drake. We have had no trouble navigating around town, and we've used quite a bit of the town while we've been here. That said, being here has been somewhat like Alice Through the Looking Glass. Things seem familiar, but they are oh so different. Time marches on, and Houston has subtly changed in many ways in the 25+ years since we've lived here.
First, the freeways - lots of them aren't 'free' anymore. We got onto Interstate 10 on Saturday and drove 30 miles to Katy, Texas - sort of the outer limit of western Houston's bedroom communities. Katy was a sleepy little town, certainly not a suburb of Houston in 1972. Interstate 10 was called 'The Katy Freeway" since if you drove west out of Houston, that was the first town. I-10 in the 21st century was a curious combination of freeway, tollway and HOV lanes. It was a vast improvement over the old 2 lane "Katy Freeway", however; when there are 6 - 8 lanes of traffic, some of them toll and some of them free, it gets a bit overwhelming. Drake's last office in Houston was at "Eldridge Road", a far western exit off the I-10 freeway. His office building was pretty much surrounded by fields and it was darn hard to find a place to eat lunch. Now it would be hard to find a field for 10 miles in any direction, and sleepy little Katy is a bustling suburb with no space between it and Houston.
It's very disconcerting to recognize all the names of the exits on all the freeways, but to discover you have no idea what is there anymore. For instance, The Summit - a very cool NBA venue for the Houston Rockets is now owned by Joel Osteen and is the biggest church in the USA. (How's that for strange?) So many things have been replaced or are just gone that when I saw something I recognized, it was like running into an old friend.
I think the changes in and around Houston have been positive. Their Museum of Fine Arts has evolved into two separate buildings connected with a cool tunnel filled with artwork. We went to three first rate exhibits today - one from the National Gallery of Art and two other modern artists. All three blew me away. (Don't you just love it when you get to see a new artist that blows your skirt up?) The Houston restaurant scene which was always way better than Dallas, Fort Worth or San Antonio is really, really exciting and better than ever. We've gotten to eat at some excellent establishments here - a welcome change after Arizona, home of the chain restaurant and proud of it. Minute Maid Park and the new Houston Rockets Arena is slowly transforming the concrete and glass empty canyons of downtown into a real neighborhood.
Overall I've felt like Rip Van Winkle while I've been here in Houston. Part of me feels I just lived here yesterday, and the changes are shocking. Then, I step back and realize that I've been gone from this town for over 25 years and, of course, it's changed. I feel both at home and a visitor at the same time. This has been a tutorial in the maxim that "Everything changes". In Houston's case, it seems to be for the better.
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